Observation

[NawlinsFan]

A point of understanding for a player like me. I think it is safe to say, IMO, that this game has become a very cerebral challenge for some trying to tweak as much as they can from it. If you even remotely follow any of the FOF community you will find that those that rule the tops of the various leagues have developed various tools and/or models with which they can scrutinize data in multiple ways to aid in their game play. Sure, most of it may only alter a season by say 2-3 wins or so but that in itself makes a world of difference. Now, I don't fault anyone for doing this, not at all. My struggle is not knowing how to use and/or create the tools myself in order to allow me to be as competitive as I can/could be. I will admit it does lessen some of the "fun" when/if you have a few of these fine people in your league. Even this though is becoming interesting in that there is this an amazing amount of sharing of information from within the community which will inevitably make the interested player more competitive. So I want to personally thank those that fall into this category for taking the time and making the effort to offer findings and/or their own personal observations. So I, the average player, will continue to filter through the information as I set aside time to learn more of the in's and outs of using excel for more than home budget tracking. Who knows, maybe when Jim jumps back in to FOF9 (toes crossed) he may consider talking with Ben (Ben willing of course) about using his league data structure as part of the game itself to aid us common folk that can repair a turbine engine and keep a helicopter flying but struggle to grasp the concept of pivot tables.

[Bisbo]

Well said. I feel pretty much the same way.

I'm in a league with Ben and several other top-notch GMs. In our most recent draft, 6 of Ben's 7 picks were rated Good, compared to my two. Then I saw a spreadsheet he posted analyzing the picks, and its obvious why he is so much better than me.

I don't have the time or the tech skills to compete at their level. But rather than feeling frustrated by that, I find that I really enjoy learning what I can from them, and seeing the results (sometimes) in my own performance. It keeps the game fresh for me. Everyone is great about sharing their knowledge, which makes the experience even better.

[Ushikawa]

You may be better suited in a less-intense league, I would recommend the fof-apfl.com we have openings.

[Squirrel]

This is a helpful steer for some of the stuff I've been doing lately, cheers.

One of the things that talking to some of the top FOF GMs in the world lately has done for me is show how much skill is going on among the top tier players...and what's cool is that there are different skillsets on show even at the elite level...it isn't just the same single skill that some people have more of than others. So for example some players have very strong analytical skill, others have advanced tech or quantitative understanding that they bring to bear, and others are more reliant on strategy and focus on things like disciplined long-term thinking and smart roster construction.

I view the game as a masterpiece mainly because there are many ways to win and no clearly dominant strategy, at least as far as I can see.

Even with all the advanced tech going on in some quarters I think every GM in the MP world can do things to bring themselves within dice rolls of a bowl win, and I don't think they require much tech or maths savvy, except perhaps for downloading and using analyser which comes closest to that line. The #1 thing I would say is if you ever find yourself drafting in the top 5, sit tight and pick a QB, WR or elite TE. Don't trade the pick!

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by NawlinsFan

Who knows, maybe when Jim jumps back in to FOF9 (toes crossed) he may consider talking with Ben (Ben willing of course) about using his league data structure as part of the game itself

Multiple core issues are at work here.


1. Without Jim making key information from the game exportable, it'd be impossible to do a league draft in the ways we've become accustomed. It'd either be a multiple-week post-your-pick-in-the-forum draft, or one with preference lists only. The files that Conscriptor requires are also the files that contain EVERYTHING you need to analyze a draft with other tools, so this isn't a case of "if only Jim wouldn't export csvs, we wouldn't have this problem!" If he didn't let those be exported, FOF MP would likely just pause in every league until we raised enough money to get Stelmack to create something like Extractor from back in the day to read the ratings from the screen, and then we'd be right back where we are now, but with a more difficult job for commishes to get a draft going.



2. The scouting model means that everyone's draft_personal.csv and player_personal.csv exported files are different, and for some players they are as different as Team A seeing the player as barely above replacement level, and Team B seeing him as a potential star. This is a huge sticking point for me making any of my stuff available, as all of it is based on how *my* staff sees the players. For others to run the same stuff based on their staff, I'd have to figure out how to let everyone login to something and then upload their own draft_personal.csv file like Conscriptor has.



3. Piggybacking on #2, I don't know that this is true in all cases, but I know that it's true for a fact in several other cases: some (probably most) of the folks using self-created tools are not software developers. Instead, we've learned how to do just enough technical stuff to analyze FOF (and other gaming) data. Point being, I'm not the only person who has created some tools for himself but at the same time doesn't know how to make the stuff usable by anyone else apart from "hey, everybody come look at how my scouts see all these players!" The rookie draft scouting mechanism really is a *huge* sticking point in all of this. (FWIW, in the leagues that I run, there are several places where people DO get to see my scouts' impression--but it's always *after* the draft for rookies. I think there are one or two places where they see it for vets.)



4. The ideal solution imho is to have something like Draft Analyzer in the game. To be clear--and I meant to show it in the video but got ahead of myself--the primary tool that I use works just like Analyzer: I enter a numerical weight for every bar and every combine to calculate an overall number, and also display the chemistry group. The main difference is that all weights are applied by numbers rather than how analyzer uses sliding bars. (I'm a math guy, not a visual one, so I'd rather be able to say that Route Running has a 1.14 weight, then adjust it from there numerically rather than sliding scales around.) That screen that I showed in the video is only a gut check when I've honed in on a specific player, and can only be accessed from my Analyzer replacement. Point being, if everyone had an in-game way to weigh bars and combines and have the players show up in that order in-game, it'd be a good 80% of what I'm doing with the stuff I've developed.


5. Failing that, as I said in the video, if you're frustrated with your drafting, INVEST SOME TIME IN IMPROVING YOUR DRAFT ANALYZER WEIGHTS! Bisbo, that WR I took in the first round of the NAFL draft was rated #162 overall by adjusted rating and the #16 WR. My analyzer weights had him at #9 overall (as did my custom system) and #3 WR. The TE in round 2? He was #244 and #8TE, but my weights moved him up to #20 overall/ #1 TE. In game after the draft, the TE is showing up as by FAR the #1 TE in future (68...#2 guy is 53) and the WR is showing tied for 2nd, though he was the 5th WR drafted. If your Analyzer weights aren't picking up guys like that, you're probably not going to scroll that far down the in-game list for 1st and 2nd round picks. My strong suggestion is that at some point after the Pre2 changes, go through and adjust your weights to better reflect how guys (apart from volatility busts) actually turned out. It doesn't take long and the ROI can be huge. In the case of the TE in particular, at the time my 2nd round pick came on the clock, he was by FAR the top guy in Analyzer by my weights, and also in my internal system. That leads me to believe that he was simply so far down the overall draft board that few/no other owners had put eyeballs on him. Adjust your weights so he's at least a top 40 player--even if he gets the VSOD in TC.



6. MalcPow is on another planet with drafting. We just need to deal with that until such time as Jim decides to completely redo his player creation model. And we need to be grateful that he doesn't give that level of attention to other parts of the game and sometimes doesn't export for weeks at time. Otherwise, all of this would be "HOW DOES MALCPOW WIN 14+ GAMES EVERY FREAKING YEAR!" (Those who haven't played in a league with MalcPow can't fully appreciate the level of drafting savant that he is. If you think I'm good, take that and multiply it by, oh 1.5 or so. Seriously, he'd have the best draft--by far--every single year in every single league is he stayed dialed in.)

[NawlinsFan]

Originally Posted by Ushikawa

You may be better suited in a less-intense league, I would recommend the fof-apfl.com we have openings.

Ushi - I'm nbryant (jets) there!

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Multiple core issues are at work here.
4. The ideal solution imho is to have something like Draft Analyzer in the game. To be clear--and I meant to show it in the video but got ahead of myself--the primary tool that I use works just like Analyzer: I enter a numerical weight for every bar and every combine to calculate an overall number, and also display the chemistry group. The main difference is that all weights are applied by numbers rather than how analyzer uses sliding bars. (I'm a math guy, not a visual one, so I'd rather be able to say that Route Running has a 1.14 weight, then adjust it from there numerically rather than sliding scales around.) That screen that I showed in the video is only a gut check when I've honed in on a specific player, and can only be accessed from my Analyzer replacement. Point being, if everyone had an in-game way to weigh bars and combines and have the players show up in that order in-game, it'd be a good 80% of what I'm doing with the stuff I've developed.

Oh, yes. That would really help indeed. If the game included the things I (and I bet several MP players) try to do to improve their draft results, that would tremendously help and save time.


For example, I'm on version 3.something of my draft class excel sheet and after tweaking and tweaking now the biggest chore is importing the scouting data into the sheet. And after that reorder the list of players based on my own weights to various bars, combine scores, position importance and other datapoints also available in game.

Do I do this to think I can get an edge on the rest of the league? I don't know, I have a good resume in drafting, but when I have a good draft, it's usually because I picked the best LB, best C, best OT, best DT, best K (okay, and also a generational CB and WR), but quite simply: they had great bars and impressive combines. Picking those players doesn't really require the aforementioned spreadsheet, that's also doable with Conscriptor, still requiring to have uploaded my scouting data to be able to order players. Or even by looking in game at the top 25 or so players. (And yes, in most of those best x cases, I trusted the interview result from my staff to).

I think I'm better than average with picking role players that work in later rounds, but I don't think it's because I have a better tool that finds masked hidden gems, it's because my tool does the things I otherwise would have to do with mouse clicking and manually writing down what I observed.

Does this get me the best players? No, you can never be 100% sure. Does it get me the same players I would have chosen had I browsed through all the 600 rookies? Most likely, yes.

So, yes, it would really help to be able to go through the draft class (the free agent player pool as well, fwiw) in a way where you can filter or order and go from there with your actions. It would make the use of my spreadsheet feel no longer necessary.


Until then: either pick the 'sure' things (if the player has big bars and impressive combine numbers, he's going to be great 9 out of 10 times), or find a way to figure out what are important bars and other numbers to you and pick players based on that.

[Ushikawa]

Originally Posted by NawlinsFan

Ushi - I'm nbryant (jets) there!

Who Dat! You are doing fine man, the draft is the biggest thing that has changed, just use Analyzer as is- bars are more important than combines now.

[Bisbo]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

5. Failing that, as I said in the video, if you're frustrated with your drafting, INVEST SOME TIME IN IMPROVING YOUR DRAFT ANALYZER WEIGHTS! Bisbo, that WR I took in the first round of the NAFL draft was rated #162 overall by adjusted rating and the #16 WR. My analyzer weights had him at #9 overall (as did my custom system) and #3 WR. The TE in round 2? He was #244 and #8TE, but my weights moved him up to #20 overall/ #1 TE. In game after the draft, the TE is showing up as by FAR the #1 TE in future (68...#2 guy is 53) and the WR is showing tied for 2nd, though he was the 5th WR drafted. If your Analyzer weights aren't picking up guys like that, you're probably not going to scroll that far down the in-game list for 1st and 2nd round picks. My strong suggestion is that at some point after the Pre2 changes, go through and adjust your weights to better reflect how guys (apart from volatility busts) actually turned out. It doesn't take long and the ROI can be huge. In the case of the TE in particular, at the time my 2nd round pick came on the clock, he was by FAR the top guy in Analyzer by my weights, and also in my internal system. That leads me to believe that he was simply so far down the overall draft board that few/no other owners had put eyeballs on him. Adjust your weights so he's at least a top 40 player--even if he gets the VSOD in TC.

Good advice Ben. That will be my next project (I've recently been working on playbooks and game planning).

[garion333]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

4. The I'm a math guy, not a visual one, so I'd rather be able to say that Route Running has a 1.14 weight, then adjust it from there numerically rather than sliding scales around.

I'm the opposite, which is why Draft Analyzer is such a huge tool for me. Without the graphical aspect I am (well, was) flying dark.

Everyone doing Excel stuff is cool, but it's definitely not for me without graphical representation somehow. Without that it's nigh useless to me since I frequently draft on intuition (based on knowledge).

In case it isn't obviously stated anywhere: If you are struggling in MP drafts, (1) use DA and (2) spend a ton of time drafting in SP mode.

Fast sim the parts that don't matter (ie. the season) and get to the drafting. See what happens to your guys, sim past the season, get to the next draft, wash, repeat.

Also, tweak DA, as Ben says, but don't test it in MP, test it in SP as it won't hurt you there.

And, yes, add me to the chorus that DA, or something like it, would greatly help in-game drafts. Jim is lucky folks have made tools for his game, but that any tool is a requirement to play the game well means that it'll remain an uber niche game in a niche genre.

[Hammer]

Common misconception that you need tools outside the game to compete at the highest level. To draft at the highest level, probably. Even then really only ever seen a couple of guys who I felt were drafting at a level game only couldn't keep up with, Ben and Malc. Who I believe have self made utilities. There are plenty of other avenues in the game to bridge the gap, such as game planning.

Never used anything outside the game, never touched DA. Around .800 in 15+ years of MP FOF.